


To Make the Leaves A Bit Greener

by Nehszriah



Series: Fae and Fantasy Doctor Who AUs [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Prompt Fic, Shapeshifting, consensual mortal kidnapping, fae-tech TARDIS, only contains bits of Eleven and the Gomez Master
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehszriah/pseuds/Nehszriah
Summary: “How… how’d you do that…?” she marveled.“Magic,” he grinned. He stood and held out his hand towards her. “Would you like to see how?”She paused for a moment, thinking it through, before putting her hand in his.“Go ahead; show me wonders.”[From a prompt on tumblr requesting Twelve/Clara as a fairy AU.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'd had a grander vision for this, but then I lost it, so I'm putting out what I have for the time being, since it might be all that happens. Enjoy!

He enjoyed appearing in different forms to different people. A sailor and his girlfriend knew him as a kindly old grandfather, while a medical student saw a man who wore trainers with a suit. Sometimes he appeared different to the same person, like when he changed form on the journalist or the flight attendant. They were always quick acquaintances from his perspective; fun yet fleeting. That was all mortals were, truth be told, and he occasionally did believe it, when he was alone and thinking about his days amongst his own kind. It was a rough business, not being connected to one’s people, though he endured it, because it was better to live alone than amongst the wild, uncaring, judgmental fae whom he abandoned, and had abandoned him in turn, in his youth.

It was better, until he learned that his twinned hearts could ache as mortals’ did.

He sat alone on a bench in the nature park, watching as animals and people alike went by. His previous companions had turned old and grey before his eyes and he had watched as their bodies were laid into the cold earth. That was on another continent, however, and now he was back in England, back to the beginning, and unsure of where to go from there. He hadn’t even the heart to change his appearance, for he was still contemplating

“Is this seat taken?”

Glancing up, he saw a woman standing next to him and gesturing towards the empty spot on the bench. Her hair was the same brown as her eyes and she wore a plaid skirt with her black jumper.

“No, go ahead,” he replied, sliding down the bench to give her more room. He watched her take a journal out of her bag and begin to write—it was curious for a mortal to see him without his willing it, and even curiouser for them to almost ignore his presence despite that. “What are you writing?”

“Just some observations; I teach literature in early secondary school and it’s going to be example work for a project about description in their readings.”

“Sounds like an awful lot of trouble.”

“It’s worth it… at least I think so,” she said. “This is my favorite spot to write—I nearly always get something good while I’m here.”

“Really now?” he chuckled. As she returned to her work, he wordlessly communed with the forest around them, allowing the woman to see more than merely leaves and bark and grasses. When she glanced up, her eyes began to nearly inflate, welling in tears, and he instantly knew that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

He wanted to see that look on her face for always.

* * *

Later on that night, as he ate dinner in his sìth, the fae wondered what it would take to gain the trust of the woman whom he had encountered in the park, for he wanted her to see all the true wonders of the fae world. The look on her face had said it all—she would be someone that would appreciate his efforts, who could see what was truly there, and the prospect of that excited him. They could travel all over the world from the comfort of his sìth, using the same magic he had long-embedded in the ground that made the place expand and contract to fit his needs, and it would be worth the risk of accidentally exposing his kind to the mortal world.

Standing up quickly, he stared at himself in the mirror, knowing that his current form would not do at all. Brown floppy hair and a strong jaw had been fine before, though now it seemed a bit not-enough. Thinking of a face he saw once, he concentrated his powers and molded his features to match. While there was not enough in him to get any hair but grey, he was still able to fashion the thick eyebrows and beaky nose he had been imagining. His body thinned somewhat, his eyes refused to stick to a single pale, stormy color, and his hands became knobby, slight things with slender fingers.

“Yes,” he said, though frowned immediately after. His old voice would not fit, not at all, so he thought about the woman in the park and what she might possibly react towards. He dropped the pitch and searched his mind for an accent, one that popped out at him almost immediately.

“ _Yes_ ,” he grinned. Glasgow—enough like former companions’ voice for his own comfort, yet not them precisely, which he knew would be enough to catch the attention of the woman in the plaid skirt. He then changed his mortals’ clothes; off with the bowtie and braces and on went a pair of dark navy trousers with a matching jacket lined with red. New boots, a new shirt, a bit of this, some less of that, and he was on the correct path.

Preening himself, he stayed up all night perfecting his new look, returning to the park bench the following morning. She was already there, her gaze fixed upon the bit of wood before her in a nearly disappointed scowl.

“Looking for something?” he asked as he sat. She didn’t even turn towards him, instead deigning to keep her eyes on the trees.

“I was here yesterday, after coming here probably hundreds of times, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,” she said. “Now it all seems so dull; it’s frustrating.”

“Do you think it was magic?” he posed. At that she finally looked at him, stifling a snicker when she saw his outfit.

“Why? Are you going to tell me you’re a magician next?”

“Those parlor tricks and children’s games? I should hope I’m a bit better than that.” He wiggled his fingers and waggled his eyebrows, and, just as the woman was about to question what substance he was under the effects of, he pointed towards the bit of wood in front of them and it was as though the leaves became brighter and the light gentler and the air sweeter, all for a moment’s time.

“How… how’d you do that…?” she marveled.

“Magic,” he grinned. He stood and held out his hand towards her. “Would you like to see how?”

She paused for a moment, thinking it through, before putting her hand in his.

“Go ahead; show me wonders.”

He led her to an abandoned part of the park, more dumping ground than forest now. In it there was a moss-covered police box that sat derelict—the sight of it made her pull her hand away, as she realized that was where he was taking her.

“Don’t think you can trick me,” she frowned. He stared at her, curious about her change of heart.

“What are you talking about?” he wondered, brows furrowed. “Haven’t you seen a fae sìth before?”

“That’s a bloody old police box with just enough room for you to—wait, a what…?”

“A fae sìth, a faerie home; don’t think we live in normal flats like mortals do. As for the looks…” He patted the closed half of the doors, feeling the sturdy wood beneath his hand. “…we have never been able to afford to have mortals stumble into our realms uninvited, now more than ever.” With that he vanished into the police box, giving her the choice whether to follow him further or not.

She hesitated briefly before entering, marveling at everything she saw before her. The outside police box was only a cover for a gateway into the faerie world, a place where it seemed as though all colors on the outside world were muted and the birdsong was but mere screeches. Stepping further into the lair she found the fae man she had followed; his jacket was unbuttoned and red lining exposed as he stood there, expectantly.

“What do you think?”

“I think this is _incredible_.”

He grinned before speaking an inhuman tongue, projecting his voice throughout the simple room of dirt and bookcases and hanging sprigs of herbs. A crystal sitting on a nearby table glowed and the woman could feel the ground beneath her shift, though not in a way for her to lose her balance. When the floor felt stable again, she went to the entrance and poked her head out the door, finding they were now tucked away in a city alley, a language not English being spoken a short distance away.

“Do you like it?” he asked. She turned around, her eyes glittering in excitement.

“Show me more.”

* * *

Killed by ravens—that had been the fate of the changeling corpse the fae had placed in the stead of his new mortal companion. Her grandmother was newly dead and father, although remarried, had been existing in a living death since her mother’s passing and she could not bear to watch it anymore, meaning there was no one left to keep her around. Dead grandmother, mother, father, boyfriend; she might as well of been dead herself. In disguise provided by the fae, she acted executor of her own estate, tied up loose ends, and soon had her things moved into the fae sìth so that she could travel at the drop of a hat.

He took her to the most marvelous places—mountains and glens, oceans and deserts, forests and valleys—and she took it all in. Sometimes they went to cities, in the parks and abandoned patches that were returning to the green, for that was the only way they could travel there using magic from days immemorial. They would sit on park benches, where she wrote and he sketched, or they would run from some danger they encountered from lesser beings. She told him about her short life thus far, and he revealed little about his many, many centuries. He instructed her in the magic that moved the sìth, so that she may pick a destination now and again, and little things that made his home, well, home. Soon there was an unspoken bond between them, flourishing in silence as they wandered from place to place.

…that was, until the day they encountered one of his kind.

It was something that would otherwise have been a rare treat, introducing his companion to another fae escaped from the faerie realm, except this particular individual was pure chaos. She wreaked havoc on a village, flooding it after a drought merely to get his attention. The two fae fought, their power becoming a great gale that threatened to destroy the remainder of the village and the surrounding wood. When the winds calmed and it seemed as though all had been ruined, the mortal saw her companion step into view. He had been victorious.

She glanced at him and, for a brief moment, she saw his true self. His face was very much the same, though his hair was longer and created a halo of grey atop his head, adorned with a wreath of green, berries, and colorful butterflies. Fine clothes of green cloaked his shoulders, so delicate they might have been made with the very leaves and mosses adorning the surrounding trees, and the odd wand-like device in his hand a grand scepter. There was not a forest around him anymore, but flames, terrible and great, for all his might was set ablaze in glory. She blinked and it was gone—the man she knew standing before her.

Her heart swelled and in an instant she was on him, pressing their bodies and lips together in complete and utter need. He pulled back for a moment and stared at her in wonder.

“What did you see?” he asked, cautious.

“I saw _you_ ,” she replied gently. She pulled him back in for another kiss, this one slower and more precise, as she eased him against the tree trunk. “You are the only man alive for me.”

“Can I be so inside the sìth? This tree belongs to a dryad and I prefer that she does not find us when she returns.”

Hand in hand, they walked back to their sìth together. Inside there was a room that defied all laws of science and logic known to mortalkind, where windows on the walls and ceiling opened to the bright sunshine of the faerie realm, allowing for a bed of soft grass and wildflowers. That was where she took him, slow and sweet, one declaring their devotion to the other in soft whispers and wheezing gasps. They became more than companions, something less elicit than the word _lovers_ , but consorts that bridged the gap between mortal and faekind. A mess of limbs and sweat, they fell asleep under a blanket woven from the same grass as their mattress.

He had asked her to elope and she did, and only now were they truly, actually, and most certainly, husband and wife.


End file.
